The Usual Suspects continue their winning streak of recreating the digital legends of the 90s/00s with Blue Giant, a recreation of the classic Novation SuperNova II.
Announcing new plugins almost as quickly as Behringer announces new hardware, The Usual Suspects have teased yet another new synth plugin using their acclaimed DSP-busting technology that allows for bit-perfect recreations of hardware long-since consigned to the dustbin of history.
Blue Giant
This time, it’s the Novation SuperNova II that benefits from the TUS defibrillator, and we will soon be able to enjoy this analogue modelling monster once again providing, of course, that you own the hardware and therefore can legitimately source the required ROM data to run it.
Some Background
The SuperNova II continued where its predecessor and the initial Nova left off, delivering a synth that was complex and powerful and sated the appetite of many for big, huge analogue -type sounds. It had a very hands-on interface and boasted a very impressive spec of 24, 36 or 48 voices, depending on whether you plumped for the regular, Pro or Pro X version.
It was also eight-part multitimbral, something sadly unheard of these days, and it sported some delicious multi-mode filters and three oscillators, two ring mods and noise per patch. Throw in some very decent effects, a 42-band vocoder and a metric tonne of performances and you had a veritable classic.
So it is hugely exciting to see it getting the Usual Suspects love and attention in the form of Blue Giant. Expect to see it fully recreated with their impeccable attention to detail and rigorous beta-testing process. Blue Giant was premiered on YouTube via the Numero Uno channel, and it sounds like they’ve absolutely nailed it.
Blink and You’ll Miss It!
But wait, there’s more! Watch the full video, and you will see an obviously intentional sneak peek of yet another new TUS project in the form of an emulation of Roland’s SRV-330 Dimensional Space Reverb! Billed as the TRIPLEX TUS R-330, this will have almost as many people excited about it as the Blue Giant.
In Conclusion
As with all things The Usual Suspects, there is an extended alpha and beta testing phase, performed by a large community of paid-up supporters. The obvious legal implications are repeatedly made clear and obvious and you must be an owner of the original hardware, and therefore legally able to extract the necessary ROM data to power these recreations.
I wonder how long it will be before some of the hardware manufacturers that have seen TUS recreations of their synths actually get in touch with the team and stick them on their payroll to do all of this work officially? It would make perfect sense as their is a clear and obvious demand for such work.
More Information
Anyway, go visit the Usual Suspects website for links to their projects and Discord server, where you can make a donation and get early access to alpha and beta versions for testing.
- More from The Usual Suspects
- Novation at Gearnews
The Nova name still lives to this day in the form of the MiniNova. It’s definitely worth checking out!
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